LR Boys Defeat Danville Despite Late Inning Drama

April 22, 2012

Sam Barbeau makes the grab at first base. Photo Mike Olmstead

By

Mike Olmstead, Sports Editor

ORLEANSâ€“The Ranger boys earned their first win of the season when they defeated Danville 5-4 on Thursday afternoon.
"It was a great team effort. Everyone had to give their two cents in the win."
The Rangers got the afternoon off to a good start, with Evan Royer coming home to score on a RBI single by Corey Whitten.
After a scoreless second, Danville got on the board in the third when Pat Morrissey drove in Scott Remick with a double.
Morrissey then came home courtesy of a Brett Elliot single, and the Indians were up 2-1.
Not to be out done, Lake Region answered in the bottom of the third with three runs of their own.
With two outs, Sam Barbeau got things started with a double. Jeremy Desmaris and Isaac Sweeney then walked to load the bases.
Billy Cashin took the third straight walk of the inning to bring home Barbeau, who has impressed the coach with his play as of late.
"Sam is hitting the ball really well. He is seeing the ball and nailing it."
Kyle Perry, who got the start on Thursday then drove home Desmaris and Sweeney with a single.
That would be all the scoring until the sixth inning when Matt Messier walked, stole second, and came home on an Alex Menard single.
In the the top of the seventh Royer was called in to close things out, but Danville still had some fight in them.
Kyle Johnson and Elliot drew back-to-back walks and both came home to score, closing the gap to 5-4.
After Johnson scored Sweeney came in with the bases loaded, allowed just one more run, and closed out the game to earn the save.
Kyle Perry picked up the win for the Rangers.
On Saturday it was a different story as Winooski came in and put up eleven runs to defeat LR 11-2.
Degree was not happy with his team's overall performance, but liked what he saw out of his freshman pitcher Matt Messier.
"Matt was throwing strikes, he adapted well, and his body language was excellent. But the guys behind him could not field the ball. We made some fielding errors, some mental errors and that is not acceptable."
Said Messier on the move to pitching and playing at the varsity level, "It is different, but I have been working on adjusting to it. I played summer ball on the big field so I just had take that next step and go a little farther."
The 1-3 Rangers will now travel to Peoples Academy on Tuesday to face the Wolves. Game time is 4:30.